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Babies Having Babies:A Look at Factors Among African American and White Adolescent Females
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Babies Having Babies My cousin was barely seventeen; it was her last year of high school. She was 4.0-honor role student and in every club you could think of. All her hard work paid off and she was granted an almost full scholarship to attend Marquette University. Everyone knew she would be the big success of the family. She would be the one in the family to “make it big”…nothing could stop her…or so she thought. She became pregnant the summer before her senior year; it was a shock to the whole family. After all her dad was a pastor and mother a teacher, and with her reputation, well things like this don’t happen to people like that. However it did, the question is why. Why with many options (I.E. contraception) to prevent pregnancy, are so many babies…having babies? Contraception Contraception is defined as the deliberate prevention of conception or impregnation by any various drugs, techniques or devices; birth control. Effective Contraception use generally requires planning and preparation prior to having sexual intercourse. It has been around for many years. However if birth control is so available the why do so many adolescents continue to become pregnant? Birth control failure is very high, but it maybe due to uncontrollable factors. Such factors may include that health care providers may not take the time to educate their patients on the proper usage of birth control; no method (except abstinence) is truly 100% effective and other factors like ones upbringing or environment can play a role in ones use or misuse of birth control. While others just think that pregnancy is something that “can’t happen to me” and just choose not to use any type of contraception. Approximately 45% of all unplanned pregnancies are due to the lack of any contraception being used and 55% of unplanned pregnancies are as a result of ineffective misuse of birth control. According to the National Black Women’s Health Project, African American Females are two to three times more likely than white females to conceive during their adolescent years. Two types of contraception and statistical usage. The pill. It is a monthly series in which one takes one pill a day. These pills keep the ovaries from releasing an egg. This prevents the sperm from joining with an egg or in some cases a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus. If taken correctly the pill can be 99.9% effective. According to the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance of the United States in 1999; white female students reported the highest use of the pill at 25.9 % compared to African American females at 11.9 % across 41 states.
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